Demon's Virtue

Eiro concentrated on the way that his breath caused quiet whistles inside of this hidden hallway as well as the vibrations in the air that he strengthened to be able to figure the shape of this place out. The footsteps and voices from other patrons and the Inn-Workers helped with this even more. It took him around a quarter of an hour to completely understand this building and the mechanisms of the hidden passages, but there was a space that he still didn't quite figure out perfectly.

It seemed to be a fair bit underneath this building and had numerous tunnels spreading out in any direction. Knowing about those might be pretty useful, but Eiro hoped that they would be able to leave before needing to use those.

With a slight grumble, Eiro breathed out deeply once more to collect his thoughts and pushed his body off the ground as he placed his mask back onto his face and stepped out of the hidden hallway, closing the door behind him. It seemed like the others, beside Felix, were currently sleeping, while Felix himself was far too nervous to be able to even attempt falling asleep.

Thinking that it was useless to try and 'cheer him up', something that Eiro wouldn't want to do even if he could, the Demon sat down on one of the chairs in the room and pulled one of his books out of his Treasury and started reading it.

They weren't able to get any items other than the stuff that Armodeus gave them, so they would have to stop at some other town to get new books. If they had the time to, of course.

As Eiro was reading, the Gnome was just floating right next to him and staring at him curiously, although the Demon didn't really know what exactly he was supposed to do to entertain it. The whole time, numerous small crumbs of dirt and rock dropped down the Gnome's body before falling apart into mana and rejoining the Gnome's body afterward.

Nelli also had some water droplets floating around her, although she had them under control so well that they didn't fall apart into mana. It seemed like this Gnome would get a pretty strong power-up once it found its name. Eiro actually hoped that was rather soon, because that otherwise meant they had to find the Gnome a place to see as its 'Home' soon. Since not any place was good for that, it might be quite bothersome to find one of those.

Thinking that it was no use to continue thinking about that for now, Eiro kept reading for a while, maybe an hour two, until he noticed that Felix slowly stood up from the bed he was laying in.

"Something wrong?" Eiro asked quietly, trying to make his whispered voice carry over toward Felix with Air Magic, and the young man looked at Eiro with a light startle.

"O-Oh, yeah... I don't know... I..." Felix muttered, obviously unable to properly gather his thoughts, "I wanted to apologize, I think..."

With a light frown and grumble, Eiro closed the book he was holding and placed it back into his treasury before turning toward Felix, "You think?" Eiro replied, before sighing deeply and opening the door to the real hallway and waving Felix over so that they could have a proper conversation.

"Alright, now tell me." The Demon started, "What exactly do you want to apologize for?"

Felix slowly turned away and held his own arm nervously, "For trying to charm Samantha to have her kidnapped..." He explained surprisingly bluntly, and Eiro just slightly laughed in response at how ridiculous this was, "Don't worry about it. Not like I would have ever let any harm come her way."

Felix slowly turned back and looked at Eiro again with a seemingly surprised expression, "You aren't angry with me..?"

"Huh? When did I say that?" Eiro asked with a slight frown, "Obviously I am, I'm so pissed that I could still rip your head off this very moment without any sort of remorse. But for the hundredth time, while you can't escape the whole blame, most of it lies with Enka." The Demon pointed out, "Since it could have very well been those children in there in your position, I don't think I should be just as harsh on you."

Now, Felix grew even more confused, just staring at Eiro to figure out what he meant, "What do you..." He asked quietly, and Eiro turned toward Felix and sighed.

"You know those six that look nothing alike and are mostly within a few months' age of each other aren't my biological children, right?" Eiro pointed out, but Felix just looked back at the Demon as if this was a revelation he never would have expected. Although, now that Eiro mentioned it, Felix figured he should have figured that out a bit earlier.

"They... They know, right?" Felix asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I picked them up seven years ago, of course they know." The Demon said, and it seemed like Felix was feeling rather complicated about all this all of a sudden.

He grasped his chest and started breathing heavier as the rate of his heartbeat grew faster. Confused at what was suddenly going on, Eiro looked at Felix as the young man slid down the hallway's wall and hid his face behind his knees while looking downward.

"They're not even your real children, and you still treat them like that..?" Felix asked as he started to freak out even more, "You've got to be joking with me..." He practically sobbed, and Eiro just looked down at him.

He couldn't believe this was happening, but he actually felt bad for Felix. Since he really didn't like what he was feeling for this kid that he couldn't even really stand, Eiro wanted to make him just shut up. Eiro squatted down in front of him and placed his hand onto Felix's head.

"Don't worry. You won't have to be scared of Enka any more from now on." Eiro said reassuredly, "We'll bring you somewhere safe."

Slowly, Felix raised his head and looked at Eiro again, his eyes red from crying, and the young man's body just suddenly went weak. It seemed like he really wasn't doing too well. With a quiet grumble, Eiro sighed and sat down right next to Felix.

Eiro remembered that a few years ago, there was a time where Clementine had immense nightmares every single night for a period of a few weeks, where he was just sitting right next to her bed the whole night to make sure she wouldn't freak out in the middle of the night. They never really figured out why she suddenly had those nightmares, so all that Eiro could do was sit there and make sure that Clementine was doing alright.

The Demon really, really, really didn't like Felix. He felt so much anger at the idea of what could have possibly happened to Sammy if Eiro hadn't been careful. And even if in Eiro's opinion, Enka was mostly to blame, Felix was still infuriating. But he also felt bad for Felix. He was just a scared kid, and if he imagined one of the others in such a situation, he knew what he wanted whoever was there with them to do.

Eiro extended his hand to the side and pulled on Felix's shoulder to pull him over toward Eiro, "As I said. You don't have to be scared anymore. I won't let anything happen to you." The moment that this demon said these words of reassurance again, it seemed like a bit of a weight dropped off of Felix's shoulders.

While trying his best to make sure his cloak wouldn't be stained by Felix's tears and snot, the Demon just sat there and made sure that Felix could properly calm down. But with every moment that they were sitting there like that, one specific emotion kept growing stronger inside of Eiro.

It was really just a spark to begin with, but as if one of those sparks finally managed to create a kindle on dry hay, it turned into a raging flame that Eiro was barely able to keep under control. He just became so angry, and that for this dumbass kid next to him.

With a deep grumble, Eiro looked to his side and noticed that Felix fell unconscious from exhaustion, so the Demon slowly stood up and pushed his hands under Felix's body to pick him up before carrying him back into the room. After locking the door once Eiro was inside, he pulled open the door to the hidden hallway and slowly stepped inside.

But as he stepped through this hidden hallway, Nelli appeared by his side curiously, "What are you going to do?" Nelli asked, and Eiro just slightly turned his eyes to the side and grumbled, "I'm just going to practice a bit to cool off." The Demon explained, soon descending some creaking stairs until he reached a hidden door leading to the backyard.

The backyard itself really just included a bit of grass, gravel, the stables, as well as a small well in the corner that they seemed to use to supply the stables with water.

"What are you going to practice?" The Spirit asked once more, but Eiro just shrugged, "Anything, really. How about we start by refining some water from the well? As much as we can, really." The Demon said, and Nelli swiftly floated over there and started pulling water out of there before getting started on the refinement.

In the meantime, it seemed like the Gnome that had followed them as well wanted to do what Nelli was doing right now too, and started scooping up some of the dirt on the ground to refine it into a little bit of rock. It had learned how to properly refine things through Nelli's help, after all.

Although, since it seemed to Eiro that the Gnome wasn't able to manage this all so easily just like that, he simply pushed out some of his mana and tried to feed it to the Gnome like this without a contract. The Gnome gratefully accepted and kept going.

Soon, there was a bubble of highly refined water with a diameter as large as Eiro's height floating in front of him, while there were a few clumps of roughly refined rock scattered on the ground. Eiro slowly extended his hand forward toward the bubble with his wooden hand before the water started practically devouring him.

The Demon now stood there in a bubble of water, one that soon started to bubble from the inside out due to the immense heat it was taking on. Somehow, Eiro was able to think aboute everything quite well inside of this boiling hot water.

Slowly he sat down cross-legged and turned the outermost layer of the water-bubble into ice while the inside kept boiling. Of course, this was only possible since this was highly refined water. Eiro just sat there inside of this bubble, staring through it into the outside while deep in thought.

'Piece of shit' Eiro thought to himself, 'I want to kill you...' He added to that.

'Disgrace. Abomination. Atrocity.' Slowly, Eiro's thoughts started to pick up in speed and complexity. His usually so collected mind was slowly growing more and more overwhelmed in this state of concentration as he tried to get rid of exactly those thoughts through meditation.

But it didn't matter. No matter what he did, he just kept feeling worse and worse, angrier and angrier. It was as if he wanted to rip his whole body apart just to get rid of it, or better even, do just that to Enka's. Eiro wanted to kill him, destroy him, make him absolutely miserable. He wanted Enka to feel all the pain that he had brought to Felix and anyone else he may have treated even worse all at once.

And after Eiro's chest kept heating up in a way that wasn't caused by the boiling water he was sitting in, he suddenly felt a deep stab right into the center of his heart.

[Foreign Mana stored inside the body has been fed to the <Mark of the Devil>]

[<Mark of the Devil> produced <Mark of Wrath>]

[Infinite hatred exists inside of your body. You have the clear mind to control it now, but be careful not to be blinded]